• Does it have two LEDs on the bottom side of the cable?
• Is it ‘dimpled’ in the center?
• Does it fully insert into the radio?

If you answered “NO” to any of these questions you may have a counterfeit programming cable.

It is common to find these cables priced so low on eBay, Amazon, and other distributor sites. These are cheaper USB programming cables that use cloned chipsets from old Prolific cables – by using stolen intellectual property from an old Prolific chipset they try to keep their costs low, but those are not the only corners cut.

DO NOT USE A COUNTERFEIT CABLE ON YOUR BAOFENG RADIO"

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Why use a CHiRP software FTMI cable and program via desktop instead of just doing so via the radio / transceiver's console"

• It can be difficult to remember the right key combinations to program in frequencies, save a channel, set the offset, PL tone, etc. (And it'd be nice to display a text name),
• Chirp allows you to do all that from a computer, per a computer screen and an actual keyboard.
• It reduces the number of errors you get while programming in stations, and lets you do it MUCH faster.
• It also allows you to save configurations. So you can have one radio setup with stations for when you're at home, and a completely different one when you're on a trip, and be able to go back to the 'home' one without spending 4+ hours programming.
• It will NOT expand the frequencies.
• It will allow you to simply click on the menu and load all your local repeaters (by automatically downloading them from radio reference). It will allow you to quickly program in all the FRS/GMRS/etc frequencies (to listen in).
• For 10 FRS frequencies, the difference being:
• Manually doing it: 1hr.
• Doing it by chirp doing it: 2 minutes.